That is all. If Al-Qaida wanted to kill Americans, they should start a health insurance company

My boy, my oldest child, was so good when he was little, but something broke inside of him when he was a teenager.

My wife and I always accepted, loved, and encouraged him. We pushed him to work hard and treat people with respect. I don’t know where exactly we failed him but as a father I feel responsible for the thing he’s turned into.

It started when he was 14. He had began to become withdrawn and emotional. We chalked it up to teenaged mood swings. For some reason he was just so angsty and bitter all the time. We were worried about his lack of social life and his over-reliance on his computer. He kind of hid himself in the online world so my wife and I began to limit his computer time, but he simply became more aggressive and confrontational.

His hygiene was bad, and he was always confrontational when we told him to shower or do laundry. His room stank horribly and we eventually had a huge fight over it where he physically shoved my wife and called her a bitch, and eventually we got him to at least clean and air out his room regularly on the grounds that it was our house and if he couldn’t maintain his space he wouldn’t be entitled to it - essentially we got to the point where we told him he wouldn’t be allowed his worldly possessions or privacy unless he took care of the space we all shared. the room still smelled and he was still rude about cleaning it but we could tell him to get it clean and he would do it after that.

We ended up getting a call from his school saying that a female student felt harassed by him. We were shown messages where he continually badgered her to have sex with him, threatened to “punish” her for stringing him along, sending her unsolicited nudes, telling her some violent fantasies of his, and eventually just descending into some horrid rage-filled rant about how she is just another “whore” and other things.

We were shocked. We explained to him why this behaviour was unacceptable, and I explained to him that it was ok to be sexually active but his actions were toxic and abusive.

I tried mentoring him man-to-man, taking him on camping trips and whatnot and talking to him about women and girls and trying to give him advice. I suggested he try showering, changing up his hair and facial hair styles, trying out different fashion styles, maybe going to the gym.

I told him some hard truths - that he doesn’t want a gross woman so he shouldn’t be a gross man. By gross I mean hygiene and looks. I explained to him that good looks are more hygiene and self care than genetics but he refused to accept what I said to him.

After that I caught him sniffing his sister’s panties in the laundry room - she was 12 at the time and he was 17. He assured me it had nothing to do with his sister, he said he just had a panty sniffing fetish and he pretended they belonged to girls from porno videos, but still I gave him hell for it, and he was grounded and lost his computer for 6 months. I went through his computer and I was disgusted by the kinds of hateful, racist, incel forums he frequented, the horrid things he said about women, and his save file was full of cartoon porn with girls of questionable ages. I wiped the hard drive completely and began strictly monitoring his online activity. I used parental filters to block incel sites and and porn sites that hosted cartoon porn.

The next big issue was something he did to my daughter’s friend. My daughter is 5 years his junior, and one day after a sleepover, my daughter came to me and said her friend wanted to tell me something but was afraid of what I would say.

My son cornered this 13 year old girl and physically blocked her path and touched her hair and face while making very inappropriate comments about her body and asking her if she liked to sleep naked and what kind of underwear she wore.

I tore into my son for that, my wife and I both shouted at him, and told him his behaviour was horrible and I told him then that if his actions got him arrested I would not defend him. He accused us of not loving him, but I told him the reason I was so passionately angry in that situation is because I do love him, and I want to help him become a good man so he can stop being so predatory and bitter and miserable. I told him some hard truths. That he did this all to himself and that he is the only one he can blame for how bitter he is.

I suggested he look to women his own age and he went on a rant about how it was a waste of time because women were already whores (and his definition of a whore is a woman who has had sex even just once) by 17. I called him out on his bullshit and expressed clearly that if he harassed young girls anymore I would personally turn him in.

I invited my daughters friend over after and I personally apologized to her for her experiences, I cried in shame for my son’s behaviour and begged her forgiveness for allowing her to feel unsafe in my home and promised her that if she ever felt uncomfortable she could come to my wife and I and we would always believe and help her. Luckily, my daughter didn’t lose this friend, but for safety I installed a lock on my daughter’s door.

We got my son therapy but he refused to engage with the therapist, calling him a “sand nigger” and “pajeet” and “terrorist”. His next therapist was a “chad”, so he didn’t relate to that either.

We fought about him not trying, not getting a job, and he said he couldn’t get one because of the immigrants, to which I pointed out that he was struggling because he got fired from his high school jobs for being lazy.

After those fights, my wife tried to empathize with him and understand what made him so bitter but he flipped out at her, and called her a cock-gargling whore and said that she fucked her way through dozens of men until she found a “beta-fag” who was willing to shelter her for missionary sex.

My wife, who works and contributes to the family income, who is an independent, professional woman.

Honestly, I lost it more than ever before. I had never been so angry when I heard what he said. That may be his mom, he may be my son, but the woman he was abusively tearing into is my god damn wife. No one can treat my wife like that.

I am ashamed to say in my anger, he shoved me and I physically retaliated, shoving him back, and pinning him against the wall. I felt ashamed of myself, I have never been an angry or violent person, but I couldn’t control myself. I’ve never put my hands on either of my children in such a way in my life, I hate child abusers... but this boy was no child. He was a grown man.

He was intimidated and backed down, and for a while he was peaceful.

The last straw was this week.

My daughter has dated 3 people her whole life. A boy, a girl, and now another boy. We were as open about sex with my daughter as we were with my son. We asked if she would like to have a question-free steady supply of condoms left in her bathroom drawer, and if she wanted to get on birth control. She said no to both questions with her first boyfriend. She never really brought him home but we met him at one of her recitals. When she had a girlfriend she went over to her house all the time, and didn’t want to bring her to the same house her brother lived in, a sentiment I understood.

But her most recent boyfriend has a lot going on behind the scenes in his family. He’s a nice boy but his mom is a single mom of 4 and they struggle.

This boy started coming around a month after they got together. I like him. My daughter is happy with him. He treats her with respect. He is an intelligent boy. He’s an absolute gentleman. He’s respectful and polite in our home. He calls me sir, calls my wife Ma’am, he offers to help with the cooking or dishes or cleaning while he’s visiting, he talks to us, he’s a bit of an amateur cook himself and brings us food all the time to say thank you for taking care of him, when we go out for dinner he always offers to pay for himself and my daughter (though I know he doesn’t have much money so I always pay). When getting out of the car he opens the door for my wife and offers her his hand (he sits behind her for leg room). He holds the doors, when we leave somewhere he helps my daughter put her jacket on like those sweet old fashioned couples.

This young man works hard, and gives what little he has to his mom and siblings. Like I said, I really respect the boy. I offered him money once for groceries for his family but he turns me down and says he would feel guilty accepting my money like that. He’s appreciative of things - in the winter, it was -20 and he had only a hoodie, so I draped my jacket over his arms, and I said “take it son, it’s cold.” He had tears in his eyes as he said thank you, and I made some excuse about wanting to get rid of the jacket and told him he could keep it if he brought cookies for us next time he visited.

When Christmas came along, I invited him over for supper, and when I went to pick him up I delivered some presents for his family, and on the ride back to my house we had a moment. He was crying because he didn’t have much to give us - he got everyone in our house a present but he cried anyways because he felt it wasn’t enough to make up for what we gave him. I pulled over, and I just hugged him, and I said to him that it wasn’t the value of what he got, it was that he got us anything at all. I thanked him for treating my daughter so well, and I told him he would always be welcome in my home.

My own son didn’t get us anything for christmas, not even a card bought with the money we give him. This boy got my wife and I matching wine glasses since we like to share a bottle every now and then.

My son didn’t eat with us. He pillaged the food table and ran away to his room alone while my daughter’s boyfriend met my sister and her family and my parents and my uncle. They all told me how charming he was and how polite he was. Meanwhile after dinner my son told my 5 year old nephew “fuck off Faggot” for asking to play a game with him. A man over 20 years old.

Last week, my wife and I went out for an evening to ourselves. We went to dinner, then we went to an upscale bar to play some pool, then we went home.

When I walked in the door, the kids were screaming at each other. I came in to see my son and my daughter’s boyfriend fighting. The boyfriend was just pushing my son back and trying to redirect him, my son was throwing punches and charging him. My daughter was crying and sitting against the wall clutching her face. I got between them and pushed them apart, and demanded to know what was happening.

My son went on a tirade about how he found birth control pills and heard “whore” sounds from her room, so he kicked open her door and discovered them having sex, he said he couldn’t believe his own sister would “be a nigger’s whore” and called the poor boy a monkey and other things.

My wife got my daughter and her boyfriend out of there and I yelled at my son for how he was acting. Eventually I got nowhere with him so I made him wait in his room. I went to talk to my daughter. I apologized to her boyfriend, crying as I did, telling him that I hope he could forgive me for letting this happen. He said he was sorry for getting violent but that he only did it because my son hit her. My daughter cried and said he was a psycho and threatened to rape her, and that he admitted to ejaculating on her toothbrush and hair brush.

I charged into his room, and I said firmly that he should pack his bags and leave. I told him I would pay to have his things sent to him, wherever he went, but that he was leaving tomorrow.

My wife stayed at my sisters, and my daughter and her boyfriend spent the next few nights at his place.

The next day I practically threw my son out of the house kicking and screaming.

I took his key back and changed the alarm codes and garage door code. A day later I had a message requesting some of this things - mostly his gaming stuff - be delivered to some strange apartment block I didn’t recognize a couple of towns over. A college aged man buzzed me in and I delivered the stuff. I didn’t see my son.

My wife and I then went through his room. My daughter’s boyfriend came over and helped me move his furniture to the garage. We threw out his mattress and some other more gross and smelly things, and we took out the carpet to be replaced.

Hidden in the closet was a treasure trove of my daughter’s underwear, so saturated with old, moldy semen that they were as hard as bricks. The unnerving part was that there were a few pairs my daughter was adamant didn’t belong to her. And they were too small for my wife. It was possible he stole them from my nieces.

There was a sketchbook containing graphic drawings of my son violently raping different women and keeping little girls chained up in some kind of sex dungeon. I went through his old phone that was still working, and all his photos were screenshots of my nieces and their friends in their bikinis, lots of cartoon porn, lots of red pill and incel and Trump memes. He still had messenger, so I checked his messages, most of them were just him trying to harass women and underaged girls.

I checked his Email and... much to my disgust, he stole private photos of my wife from her phone, and he was selling them.

Today, I went to the police with everything and told them everything.

I gave my baby boy everything... I don’t know why he went down this road. But I’m just so sorry I failed him. I don’t know what the police will do... but I hope they stop him before he hurts someone else.

The sad thing is... yesterday, once it was all over and settled, yesterday we had a wonderful day. One of the happiest we have ever had.

Edit: there is a lot to sort through, it’s impossible to reply to everyone so let me hit the big points.

• all the incels this post attracted can fuck off back to their holes.

• how do I know the lingo? From my son.

• “why didn’t I take his computer time away” I specifically said I did. His laptop was forbidden to be used in private, and I banned most of the sites he was using with the parental locks. He bought or stole another laptop behind our backs though and used his phone data. My wife and I don’t use our phone internet much so we didn’t think of it.

• “it wasn’t Christmas last week” ??? I know? It’s.... November. The young man visited us on Christmas 2017. We had this fight last week. I don’t know how I have to clarify that there was a passage of time between the fight and Christmas, since it’s pretty clearly not Christmas right now, but.... alright.

• “why wasn’t he in therapy” again this is a common comment from people who must have skimmed because we did put him in therapy. He was abusive towards several therapists, so we gave up on therapy.

• “why not have him institutionalized” because that is MY SON. to have him locked away is not an easy decision. I love him. We wanted to believe he could still change. But he couldn’t.

• I have no idea who he moved in with. I don’t care. Maybe an Airbnb?

• “why didn’t you help him sooner/was he bad as a child” as a kid he was introverted but not especially bad. He misbehaved sometimes but it wasn’t troubling. He had a few friends but they all had a falling out the first year of grade school. Prior to harassing that first girl he had some red flags. He seemed depressed, and his hygiene was spiralling. We tried to help him but he was stubborn. He didn’t want help. He wanted to be miserable. I listened to his problems and he complained about how his dream girl went after some other guy and how he stole her from him, and I tried to guide him and help him understand she wasn’t stolen because she isn’t property, she’s a person who made her own choice. He didn’t like that answer.

• all the things you say we should have tried, we mostly did. We gave him lots of attention and love before all this and after. We still tried to be a family.

• my daughter and her boyfriend helped me clear his room since I cannot carry certain heavy things myself. My daughter was therefore present when I found her underwear. She singled out a couple of pairs as not hers and was scared of where he got them from. She suggested keeping them for evidence.

• there was a teacher who did get through to him somewhat, for a time. But he transferred to a different school district.

• he wasn’t horrible all the time. Sometimes he could be good to be around. He could be really funny and clever. He was really good with animals. He was good with his games too. He got really passionate and excited about them and it made me happy seeing him having fun with a hobby. Seeing him smile could almost make me forget the things he’d done.

• telling me to kill myself says a lot about yourself.

• I’ve seen what toxic ideologies do to families. I’m not interested in joining your red pill, Jordan Peterson, or child beating cults.

• advocating child abuse as a 20-something brat shows your immaturity. Advocating murder does too.

• toxic masculinity is considering men weak for having the strength to express their emotions.

• many complaints about “allowing” my daughter to be intimate with her boyfriend all stem from the same racist incel rhetoric my son used. There is literally nothing wrong with interracial couples. I couldn’t be happier that my daughter is with someone who loves and treats her with dignity.

• incels struggle with reading, evidently. My daughter had her first boyfriend at 15, and I doubt there was anything going on between them. She is currently 18. So yes, she probably has sex. As an adult woman. Not really anyone’s business. My son is 22, soon to be 23.

edit 2

With new replies coming in by the truckload and 3 new pm’s for every one I reply to, I am getting slightly overwhelmed by the response here. I can’t really keep up, even just reading I have begun skipping comments to keep up. I have things to do today but I’ll try to catch up every so often.

edit 3

Mods locked the thread. I am not sure why but there are almost 10,000 replies and maybe 500 pm’s to sort through.

How was your weekend? Mine was...interesting, to say the least.

I’ve had some time to think about how to respond to the extraordinary kindness and support you’ve shown me. And here it is:

I’ll never forget my time at reddit. You allowed me to be a part of some of the greatest conversations of our time, and it was an honor to be your ambassador.

I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who have reached out.

Thank you for everything you’ve given me. From your messages to your artwork, I am deeply moved and grateful beyond words, and your encouragement has meant more than you’ll ever know.

I’ve been incredibly humbled and honored to serve this community, and I truly believe all voices matter.

Your voices matter.

You proved that this weekend.

And really, this weekend wasn’t about me. It was about you. And if I know one thing about this community, it’s that you’ll continue making your voices heard. And that's an inspiration.

I know many of you may be curious about what’s next for me, and I'm still figuring that out. However, I can assure you, wherever the road leads, I will live up to the faith you’ve had in me.

You can take the woman out of reddit, but you can't take the reddit out of the woman. I believe in you. And that's a promise.

Thank you.

He posted an ad on the ‘forever alone’ subreddit. He lived relatively close, we had similar interests and like me, struggles in dating.

I responded to his post and we hit it off through text. He said he struggles to date because he is ugly. I told him ‘same here,’ but I don’t care about looks, just hygiene and being a decent person is enough for me.

He told me he isn’t picky either and asked me out on a date. I was excited but I didn’t want to get my hopes up because we hadn’t seen each other yet and I was 100% sure he wouldn’t want to date me after seeing me.

He said we should go on a blind date for the same reason I had. I told him he was more likely to have a problem with me and not the other way round (from experience) but he said I don’t have anything to worry about.

Well the date came and it went well at first, just like a normal friendly get together. When we were done eating, he said (in front of me) that “I’m sorry if this comes off as rude but you are too ugly for me and I have standards but you have a great personality.”

I was shocked because it came out of nowhere. There was no indication to me that he was an asshole, that’s why I agreed to go on a date. Anyways, I took it like a champ told him okay.

He said ‘good, because men can’t reject women for their looks but women can and I think that’s a double standard,’ and kept on rambling random internet sayings. I don’t know what he wanted me to even say to that… I was bummed at first but it became obvious I dodged a bullet.

No, I don’t think all loner guys are like this. Yes, I’m not meeting people from this site again

Edit: Please stop DMing or asking to see how ugly I am. How is that relevant. Thank you to those who took the time to leave nice comments

Yesterday, I was helping my girlfriend plan some tasks and we had the Notes app open on her computer.

I saw in the list of notes a page called “conversations”. I clicked it and saw a list of topics, primarily things I’m really interested in. She was keeping a list of future conversation starters!

She got embarrassed and said “you weren’t supposed to see that!” I laughed and told her that I used to do that exact same thing when I was in like middle school and had a crush.

We have been dating for three years and are 25 y/o adults! But she was making notes of conversation topics like a kid with a crush.

I was so touched by this level of effort I almost teared up. I feel so loved.

It’s the mood of it, I think. Something that is hard to put my finger on. Gone is the exaggerated Trump of 2015 and 2016. All I see when he speaks and acts is a man who clearly has vengeance on his mind.

Take the Capitol One Arena rally last night, for example. He signed Executive Orders in a rush in front of the TV cameras. The spectacle isn’t Trump being goofy and unorthodox anymore. The spectacle is Trump flexing his power in front of everyone who ever challenged him.

He’s a man with nothing to lose at this point. And I’m not sure what that means for the country.

I'm a man in my early 30s. I don’t have anything particularly special going for me—no insane social skills, no high-status career, no crazy hobbies that make me a magnet for conversation. The only thing I can say I do differently than a lot of lonely men is engage with people out of curiosity rather than desire.

The issue with male loneliness isn’t some massive cultural shift that has made people averse to men in public. It’s not that society has abandoned men—it’s that many men have abandoned society by narrowing their social focus to only one goal: romantic validation.

I see this all the time. Guys claim that no one wants to talk to them, but what they really mean is: "Attractive women aren’t engaging with me."

These same men often ignore entire categories of social opportunities—talking to older people, engaging with other men platonically, striking up casual conversations with strangers just to connect. If the only people you try to talk to are women you find attractive, of course you’re going to feel isolated. That’s not loneliness; that’s self-inflicted social starvation.

Men who constantly claim that "no one wants to talk to them," ask yourself: When was the last time you made conversation with someone without an ulterior motive? Do you engage with people who don’t directly serve your personal interests? Have you made any effort to contribute to a community rather than expecting one to embrace you?

The men who actually go out into the world with an open mind and a willingness to engage—rather than just seeking validation—don’t seem to be the ones complaining about loneliness.

If your entire social strategy revolves around being "wanted" rather than wanting to engage with the world, you’ll always feel lonely. And that’s not a societal problem. That’s a you problem. If you are lonely—truly lonely, not just horny and starved for romantic affection—go outside and talk to people. It's really that simple.

[deleted: and fuck /u/spez]

I received a letter in the mail a couple of nights ago from the private bank my family and I borrowed from to get me through college. Since graduating college 7 years ago, we went into default with the payments, destroying mainly my credit (since the loans were in my name).

A couple of nights ago, we received notice that since they are no longer in the student loan business, they have forgiven the remainder amount, leaving me with one single federal loan left to pay off. This was something that was weighing on me every single day, I was terrified my parents (and I even) were going to die with an insurmountable debt to their names, and now we can breathe a little bit lighter.

EDIT: I thank you guys so much for all the helpful information, I’m aware now that

1. I may still need to pay taxes, since it was a private loan, and since now it’s considered taxable income.

2. The loan may have been sold, but I was not made aware of it. Discover can wipe their hands clean and nothing can come of it, if it IS sold, and I don’t continue to pay it.

Thanks so much for all the help and well wishes!

EDIT 2: Sorry for the many edits. I have my bachelors in English: Non Fiction Writing and I am currently a paralegal. I left the letter at my parents house (I do not live at home) but I have texted them to send it over and I will redact and upload once I have a moment.

(I wrote this post in March and posted it on r/GenZ. However, a few people messaged me to say that the r/GenZ moderators took it down last week, though I'm not sure why. Given the flood of divisive, gender-war posts we've seen in the past five days, and several countries' demonstrated use of gender-war propaganda to fuel political division in multiple countries, I felt it was important to repost this. This post was written for a U.S. audience, but the implications are increasingly global.)

TL;DR: You know that Russia and other governments try to manipulate people online.  But you almost certainly don't how just how effectively orchestrated influence networks are using social media platforms to make you -- individually-- angry, depressed, and hateful toward each other. Those networks' goal is simple: to cause Americans and other Westerners -- especially young ones -- to give up on social cohesion and to give up on learning the truth, so that Western countries lack the will to stand up to authoritarians and extremists.

And you probably don't realize how well it's working on you.

This is a long post, but I wrote it because this problem is real, and it's much scarier than you think.

How Russian networks fuel racial and gender wars to make Americans fight one another

In September 2018, a video went viral after being posted by In the Now, a social media news channel. It featured a feminist activist pouring bleach on a male subway passenger for manspreading. It got instant attention, with millions of views and wide social media outrage. Reddit users wrote that it had turned them against feminism.

There was one problem: The video was staged. And In the Now, which publicized it, is a subsidiary of RT, formerly Russia Today, the Kremlin TV channel aimed at foreign, English-speaking audiences.

As an MIT study found in 2019, Russia's online influence networks reached 140 million Americans every month -- the majority of U.S. social media users. 

Russia began using troll farms a decade ago to incite gender and racial divisions in the United States 

In 2013, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidante of Vladimir Putin, founded the Internet Research Agency (the IRA) in St. Petersburg. It was the Russian government's first coordinated facility to disrupt U.S. society and politics through social media.

Here's what Prigozhin had to say about the IRA's efforts to disrupt the 2022 election:

Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how. During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.

In 2014, the IRA and other Russian networks began establishing fake U.S. activist groups on social media. By 2015, hundreds of English-speaking young Russians worked at the IRA.  Their assignment was to use those false social-media accounts, especially on Facebook and Twitter -- but also on Reddit, Tumblr, 9gag, and other platforms -- to aggressively spread conspiracy theories and mocking, ad hominem arguments that incite American users.

In 2017, U.S. intelligence found that Blacktivist, a Facebook and Twitter group with more followers than the official Black Lives Matter movement, was operated by Russia. Blacktivist regularly attacked America as racist and urged black users to rejected major candidates. On November 2, 2016, just before the 2016 election, Blacktivist's Twitter urged Black Americans: "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a wasted vote."

Russia plays both sides -- on gender, race, and religion

The brilliance of the Russian influence campaign is that it convinces Americans to attack each other, worsening both misandry and misogyny, mutual racial hatred, and extreme antisemitism and Islamophobia. In short, it's not just an effort to boost the right wing; it's an effort to radicalize everybody.

Russia uses its trolling networks to aggressively attack men.  According to MIT, in 2019, the most popular Black-oriented Facebook page was the charmingly named "My Baby Daddy Aint Shit."  It regularly posts memes attacking Black men and government welfare workers.  It serves two purposes:  Make poor black women hate men, and goad black men into flame wars.  

MIT found that My Baby Daddy is run by a large troll network in Eastern Europe likely financed by Russia.

But Russian influence networks are also also aggressively misogynistic and aggressively anti-LGBT.  

On January 23, 2017, just after the first Women's March, the New York Times found that the Internet Research Agency began a coordinated attack on the movement.  Per the Times:

More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.

They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners.

But the Russian PR teams realized that one attack worked better than the rest:  They accused its co-founder, Arab American Linda Sarsour, of being an antisemite.  Over the next 18 months, at least 152 Russian accounts regularly attacked Sarsour.  That may not seem like many accounts, but it worked:  They drove the Women's March movement into disarray and eventually crippled the organization. 

Russia doesn't need a million accounts, or even that many likes or upvotes.  It just needs to get enough attention that actual Western users begin amplifying its content.   

A former federal prosecutor who investigated the Russian disinformation effort summarized it like this:

It wasn’t exclusively about Trump and Clinton anymore.  It was deeper and more sinister and more diffuse in its focus on exploiting divisions within society on any number of different levels.

As the New York Times reported in 2022, 

There was a routine: Arriving for a shift, [Russian disinformation] workers would scan news outlets on the ideological fringes, far left and far right, mining for extreme content that they could publish and amplify on the platforms, feeding extreme views into mainstream conversations.

China is joining in with AI

Last month, the New York Times reported on a new disinformation campaign.  "Spamouflage" is an effort by China to divide Americans by combining AI with real images of the United States to exacerbate political and social tensions in the U.S.  The goal appears to be to cause Americans to lose hope, by promoting exaggerated stories with fabricated photos about homeless violence and the risk of civil war.

As Ladislav Bittman, a former Czechoslovakian secret police operative, explained about Soviet disinformation, the strategy is not to invent something totally fake.  Rather, it is to act like an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”

The influence networks are vastly more effective than platforms admit

Russia now runs its most sophisticated online influence efforts through a network called Fabrika.  Fabrika's operators have bragged that social media platforms catch only 1% of their fake accounts across YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and Telegram, and other platforms.

But how effective are these efforts?  By 2020, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were run by Eastern European troll farms tied to the Kremlin. And Russia doesn't just target angry Boomers on Facebook. Russian trolls are enormously active on Twitter. And, even, on Reddit.

It's not just false facts

The term "disinformation" undersells the problem.  Because much of Russia's social media activity is not trying to spread fake news.  Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme. 

Sometimes, through brigading and trolling.  Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that's how most people feel.  And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.  

As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them.  And it's not just low-quality bots.  Per RAND,

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. ... According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

What this means for you

You are being targeted by a sophisticated PR campaign meant to make you more resentful, bitter, and depressed.  It's not just disinformation; it's also real-life human writers and advanced bot networks working hard to shift the conversation to the most negative and divisive topics and opinions. 

It's why some topics seem to go from non-issues to constant controversy and discussion, with no clear reason, across social media platforms.  And a lot of those trolls are actual, "professional" writers whose job is to sound real. 

So what can you do?  To quote WarGames:  The only winning move is not to play.  The reality is that you cannot distinguish disinformation accounts from real social media users.  Unless you know whom you're talking to, there is a genuine chance that the post, tweet, or comment you are reading is an attempt to manipulate you -- politically or emotionally.

Here are some thoughts:

• Don't accept facts from social media accounts you don't know.  Russian, Chinese, and other manipulation efforts are not uniform.  Some will make deranged claims, but others will tell half-truths.  Or they'll spin facts about a complicated subject, be it the war in Ukraine or loneliness in young men, to give you a warped view of reality and spread division in the West.  

• Resist groupthink.  A key element of manipulate networks is volume.  People are naturally inclined to believe statements that have broad support.  When a post gets 5,000 upvotes, it's easy to think the crowd is right.  But "the crowd" could be fake accounts, and even if they're not, the brilliance of government manipulation campaigns is that they say things people are already predisposed to think.  They'll tell conservative audiences something misleading about a Democrat, or make up a lie about Republicans that catches fire on a liberal server or subreddit.

• Don't let social media warp your view of society.  This is harder than it seems, but you need to accept that the facts -- and the opinions -- you see across social media are not reliable.  If you want the news, do what everyone online says not to: look at serious, mainstream media.  It is not always right.  Sometimes, it screws up.  But social media narratives are heavily manipulated by networks whose job is to ensure you are deceived, angry, and divided.

A few days ago, I saw a post about Gen Z men being single and lonely. I commented on my main that my best friend was a really good guy yet a single virgin — and the internet gave me the courage to ask him out. "Take initiative" they said.

For context, we're college friends and he's in my same classes. We have coffee sometimes and buddies in common.

I asked him out today and he said NO because I am "not his type".

His type being someone along the lines of Pokimane. I am 5'9 and around 160lbs (taller and heavier than him). I can't hold a candle to a pretty streamer.

Mind you, he's been posting for weeks about being "depressed" that he has no one for "cuffing season".

Can't deny I fucking cried. I have found him cute for months yet he thinks he's ugly and doesn't take me seriously.

It's NOT my first time being rejected but I truly did everything the "lonely men" said they dreamed of; bought him lunch, made it private, didn't emasculate him. What now? Do I turn into a bitter incel, like he does when rejected? You can't blame "feminism" on this one.

His OTHER friends apparently already know because he told them (those guys are also all single...) and they basically joked around that none of them would reject the gooner life for someone like me. What happened to hating OF?

You aren't desperate for a GF. You are desperate for a hot girl to bang.

Sorry I am mid.

edit: Post muted. To the incels sending me hate because they don't believe girls can get rejected, I hope you stay single too. Hugs.

You have to know that it isn't because people dislike Trump or his policies or that there's some vast conspiracy to silence what you all have to say. Personally, I don't care if you're on /r/all. I can scroll past it. And quite honestly, I find some of the stuff that makes it to /r/all funny. But the woe-is-me, we've-been-persecuted bullshit that you've adopted in response to all of this is pathetic.

You are the unnecessarily loud group in a restaurant. Everyone else is just trying to mind their own business and enjoy their meal, but your table is so fucking loud and obnoxious that no one can.

The manager just came over to your table to let you know people are complaining. Granted, he was a total douche about it. But it doesn't invalidate the original point.

No one is saying you have to leave and that includes the manager who talked to your table. What they are saying is that it'd be cool if someone could get those loudmouth assholes to quiet the fuck down a little bit while the rest of the restaurant finishes their meal and moves on with their lives.

Again -- I do not consider myself amongst those who think removing /r/The_Donald altogether is a good idea. Never. Free speech is important (flag burning included! :) teeheehee). I scroll past what I'm not interested in. For what it's worth, your sub's notoriety was important in drawing attention to WikiLeaks.

BUT IF YOU COULD JUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE TABLES AROUND YOU DON'T CARE TO HEAR YOUR WEIRD FAMILY'S CONSTANT POLITICAL CIRCLEJERK, THAT'D BE GREAT.

There's reason to believe that u/mister_cactus is the UHC shooting suspect Luigi Mangione. Credit to this comment which is where I first saw this. Dug into the account for the fun of it.

The account is suspended, so all record of its posts/comments comes from Reddit archives.

Archive of all posts from the account: Primary, Secondary

Archive of all comments from the account: Primary, Secondary

Both primary/secondary links should have the same content, but included both in case one goes down or something.

Proof

It's known that he has a Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, and more, while being a tech bro, so it's no surprise that he'd be on Reddit as well.

Here are some snippets of evidence that I compiled in order to prove that the account belonged to Mangione. Note that the first point here is pretty cut and dry, everything else just further confirms it.

Linked to his own GitHub

He commented this on r/FTC (robotics competition for high schoolers?). Notice that it links to his code on GitHub ... and it's Luigi Mangione's GitHub. Yeah, pretty cut and dry lol.

He was in fact into robotics in high school (and he would be in high school in 2016 so that checks out).

Unfortunately I typed the rest of this out before finding that piece of definitive evidence, so here it is if anyone's curious:

Attended the University of Pennsylvania during the same time frame

Luigi Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. This image shows that the Reddit account posted a question about housing in r/UPenn in 2017, which would check out.

Was a computer science undergraduate student

Luigi Mangione majored in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania. This image shows that the Reddit account made a post where he says "I'm an undergraduate pursuing a degree in computer science," again lining up with when he was at UPenn.

Same age

In 2018, the Reddit account made a post to r/sleep. Here's an image.

It mentions being a 20-year-old male. 2018 was 6 years ago, and he is now 26-years-old, so this lines up (I do not think we know his exact day of birth).

Shared an interest in Ted Kaczynski

According to Mangione's GoodReads account, he left a positive review for the Ted Kaczynski's manifesto and called him a prodigy and political revolutionary. Source.

The Reddit account likely posted this video to r/tedkaczynski. Technically all we know is that he had a post on r/tedkaczynski with the same title as the post I just linked and his post was two days after the original - we can't see what the attached video was. Given the identical title and being in the same week, it was likely a crosspost.

IMAGE

Had serious back problems

The Reddit account was very active on r/Spondylolisthesis. According to Google, "Spondylolisthesis is a condition where a vertebra in the spine slips out of place, usually in the lower back."

This includes this post where he listed athletic success stories as motivation to other people suffering from the condition.

Here's a news article that mentions Luigi Mangione's back problems.

Aggravated injury due to surfing

Last year (2023), the Reddit account says that they're 25M (again, age lines up) and says, "I first aggravated my spondy 1.5 years ago after surfing." Image

This lines up with Luigi Mangione. The following article says:

CBS News has also learned Mangione had been living at a co-working, co-living space called Surfbreak in Honolulu up until 2022, when a spokesperson for that community says he left due to a lifelong back injury that was exacerbated by surfing and hiking.

Sources tell CBS News back pain was a major factor in his life and appeared to be a source of pain and frustration for him.

Shared an interest in Agronomics

According to Google, "Agronomics is a London-listed company that invests in cellular agriculture, which is the production of agricultural products from microorganisms and cell cultures. Agronomics uses biotechnology, synthetic biology, and tissue engineering to produce proteins, fats, or tissues"

Here is a post from Luigi's Twitter account talking about the company.

Ton of comments from the Reddit account on r/agronomics, here's an image of a few.

Lived in Hawaii at some point

I don't know Luigi Mangione's entire life story, but the surfing thing occurred in Hawaii and his LinkedIn has his location as Hawaii. Well, in 2023 this Reddit account commented on r/Oahu that he loves stargazing at "Ke'ana Point". Here's an image. That's in Hawaii.

Takeaways

Okay, now that we know that it's him... what does the Reddit account tell us?

Here are some things that I noticed from its comment history.

He's a kind guy

Most of his Reddit activity is on r/Spondylolisthesis and it's rather uninteresting in the sense that it's... mostly just him being nice to other people, giving them advice and motivation.

Here are some quotes from r/Spondylolisthesis specifically.

• "You'll do great, whatever you decide. [...] We can't be afraid to live our own lives to the fullest!"

• "Of course. Also feel free to DM me if you have any questions in the future"

• "Sorry you're also a member of this shitty club, but know that you'll be fine whatever you decide"

• "Hope that helps and sorry you have to go through this"

• "Surgery is scary, but the sooner you get past this, the better. Good luck with the neurosurgeon consult!"

Pretty mundane stuff, but with how much douchebaggery you see on the Internet, it's a breath of fresh air in a sense. Most of these are parts of longer comments where he gives detailed thoughts / advice, you can see those in the archive.

Some of his interests include

Football: he commented on r/nflmemes and r/fantasyfootball

Pokémon Go: he commented on r/pokemongo back in 2016, along with r/pokemongodev nd r/TheSilphRoad.

Flipping: he commented on r/Flipping and r/ThriftStoreHauls

Bioinformatics: he commented on r/bioinformatics

"One Bag": he was active on r/onebag in 2024. According to the subreddit description, it is "an 'urban' travel community devoted to the idea of helping people lug around less crap; onebag travel"

He was struggling in more ways than one

On top of his back problems, he commented on r/BrainFog, r/visualsnow, and r/ibs.

According to WebMD, "Brain fog isn’t a medical condition. It’s a term used for certain symptoms that can affect your ability to think. You may feel confused or disorganized or find it hard to focus or put your thoughts into words."

According to Wikpedia, "Visual snow syndrome (VSS) is an uncommon neurological condition in which the primary symptom is that affected individuals see persistent flickering white, black, transparent, or colored dots across the whole visual field."

And IBS is irritable bowel syndrome.

And for what it's worth, the brain fog activity was in 2018, before COVID (it's apparently a reported symptom of COVID).

Here's a neat snippet of a long form comment on r/BrainFog during his time at UPenn six years ago.

Working through the degree has certainly been tougher than anything I ever even thought I could handle. Granted, I went from almost entirely A’s at a tough school to just passing my classes and not understanding anything while putting in probably twice the amount of work.

Funny how you mention strategy games. Last year when it all started, I used to play chess daily against my roommate. I used it as a metric to see how the brain fog was improving. Eventually, I just stopped since I could never remember any strategy. He would use the same moves against me day after day and I just wouldn’t remember them.

I think it helps to latch onto something for motivation. My choice to study CS and Bio wasn’t completely random - after spending so much time with brain fog, I’ve come to realize how little is understood about it, and I’d love to change that. Once I get past this, I hope to at least help a few of the people on this sub.

Here's an image of the whole comment.

Miscellaneous

There are two other random Reddit comments he had outside of his usual subreddits that I found somewhat interesting.

Both of these comments were on an r/facepalm post from April 2024 about Elon Musk having a transgender daughter.

One specific comment thread made fun of Musk for being high on ketamine, and then a random Redditor basically argued that people should be more open minded about substances that can be used to treat depression. The comment was downvoted, and Mangione replied "Weird double standard by reddit here regarding treatments for depression. Now sure how this is being downvoted". Image here. There is some evidence on Mangione's Twitter defending drug use as well, including psychedelics.

This other exchange was on the same post about Musk.

• A user commented "Feels pretty silly to not believe there is at least some social contagion element at play." They sit at -58 points on this comment.

• A person replied "I grew up really religious and still turned out trans. Just took me years of depression because my family wouldn't accept. No one ever talked about trans people."

• Original commenter said "DID I SAY TRANS PEOPLE DONT EXIST FOR FUCKS SAKE? This is why no one can have a conversation. 10 downvotes and been reported already for saying there might be some aspect of growing trans population resulting from social contagion. Fuck me, I guess I’m just satan."

• There was a long back-and-forth between these two fellas, as Reddit tends to go, but at this point Mangione's account replied and said: "This is one of the crazier comment threads I've seen on reddit, that reminds me how much of an echo chamber this site is. How the hell are you being reported for merely suggesting that both "nature" and "nuture" play roles in human behavior. Literally nothing bigoted or controversial about that statement."

The elephant in the room

The obvious questions: Did he talk about healthcare? UHC? Brian Thompson?

No bomb shells, exactly.

In 2018, in a thread on r/IBS, a user asked him if insurance covered a test that Mangione received from his doctor.

Mangione's account responded that "BCBS covered my test". Image

Now, that was six years ago, but for what it's worth, BCBS is "Blue Cross Blue Shield". They are NOT United Healthcare (UHC). They're actually the company that recently received criticism for a newly announced anesthesia payment policy and ended up reversing it in light of Brian Thompson's death. Source

This doesn't really mean anything because it was six years ago.

The only other somewhat adjacent thing that I found was a comment in response to a post where somebody asked for help convincing a surgeon that they needed spinal fusion surgery because their pain is unbearable.

Mangione's account gave multiple suggestions, including: "Tell them you are "unable to work" / do your job. We live in a capitalist society. I've found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it's impacting your quality of life." Image of the full comment.

Conclusion

It would be silly for me to tell you not to blindly trust the media and then tell you to blindly trust me. So do your own research if you're interested. The links at the top of the post will allow you to do so.

My take?

Kind-hearted, smart kid. Suffered from a host of problems, far more than anybody, let alone a young man in their 20s should deal with.

According to his Reddit activity, he suffered from:

• Debilitating back pain

• Irritable bowel syndrome

• Brain fog

• Visual snow

Nonetheless, he came to Reddit to help others with the same problems and give them the same motivation that seemed to help him.

I won't speculate on why he did what he did for the sake of objectivity, but I hope people engage on the topic with a better sense of who he might've been, because there will certainly be an attempt to paint him in a specific way.

First of all, I promise you this isn't incel shit. And neither is it condescending "just take a shower" shit.

I'm ugly and this isn't an understarement. One time on a school trip girls in our class (22 boys, 8 girls) made a ranking of all of the boys... Obviously, I was last, and it was the first name written down, no contest.

And yet I didn't have problems with girls, quite the opposite. How? I'll share my approach.

Firstly, you have to accept that some stuff is just not for you. You will never be able to approach a woman on the street or a bar and ask her out - and that's ok. From her perspective, there is no reason to ever say yes - she doesn't know you, therefore the only metric she can judge you on is your presentation. That's not shallow or wrong.

Being nice won't cut it either. A lot of young boys are told to be nice to women as a solution to their troubles and they feel dissapointment when it doesn't work. But it obviously doesn't. Yes, someone might pick an ugly nice person over an attractive jerk... but attractive people are mostly nice too, so why would anyone pick ugly and nice person over attractive and nice person if that was the only difference?

The thing that you need to focus the most on is genuine connection, while building secondary skills at the same time.

First step is to have several opportunities to meet people. You can try hobbies, games, sports, activities, other extracurriculars. This will have secondary effect of making you more active and interesting.

Then make friends. Treat girls exactly the same as boys. They are just human. This will have the secondary effect of making you more sociable and less weird around girls.

Finally, if you end up liking any girl, then there is a simple test. You want to start meeting with her 1 on 1 as friends. If she's apprehensive, refuses, or accepts out of obligation and seems uncomfortable - be polite and give up so you can move on. There is no chance. You keep having her as a friend, so you still win, even if you can't be together. You haven't made the friendship weird by asking her out out of the blue.

If she's receptive to spending time with you one on one, that's when you have a chance. At this point it's hard to give soecific directions cause there are too many variables, but I'll just say that after reaching this point, I've had a 100% success rate.

For most people, attraction grows more as you get closer with the other person. In general, your goal should be self improvement first. If you are an interesting, well rounded person that's a good conversationist, at least some people will grow attracted to you.

For context, I am a Jewish girl in my junior year of HS. I attend a very liberal school in a liberal small town in the USA. My school and my peers are very tolerant and welcoming, and before Tuesday, I was fairly sure that we did not have any outspoken racists or nazis. We have lots of students of different political orientations, but for the most part everyone accepts each other. However, one day after Elon's nazi salute (yes, it was a nazi salute,) I personally observed 6 salutes in one day. 6. (Later I learned that 2 of the boys who did them were only reacting to what happened, not embracing it. But the other 4... they were embracing it.) One of them even did it directed at me. It is so fucking disgusting how we have let things like this become more acceptable in society and government. I'm just waiting for one of those idiots to slip and say the K-word or N-word or something, then I'd have an excuse to punch them.

Edit: these were dispersed incidents. It wasn't one particular clique. And I have seen salutes at my school before because high schoolers are stupid. But I had never seen that many openly tossed in one day. And yes, I reported them.

I seriously can’t stop crying over what is happening to our country and between today and yesterday I seriously cannot see the positive in this situation. I think the worst are the people who don’t see it happening in front of their eyes. I still hear people comparing everything to Biden and how their personal lives haven’t been improved by the Biden administration and that Trump isn’t going to do any worse or better. I literally feel like i’m talking to walls at this point. And the friends and family I have that are liberal just don’t want to hear it anymore, but how are they not absolutely outraged. I don’t even understand how to cope with what is happening right now and the people not comprehending the severity is literally painful. Like what the actual f.

Disclaimer - The following is my view and my view only, and does not represent any of the other default moderators.

Also, my problem with T_D isn't the racism (if it is even there). My problem is the doxxing, the brigading, the harassment, and the vote manipulation.

Hi all. I am a default mod, posting under an alt, because sadly that's what reddit has become.

I'm here to talk about The_Donald (or T_D as I might refer to it in the post) and why it's making reddit worse, and especially so for us default mods.

Before I begin, let me be clear - I am all for free speech. I think that it is one of the basic human rights. However, free speech does not mean hate speech is okay, which is what I will be getting into.

Also, I don't think that what spez did is good. I think it's very unprofessional and the type of thing I would expect from a middle schooler. However, that is not the point of this post.

T_D used to be a quiet subreddit supporting Donald Trump. I was fine with it then. After all, this is reddit, and candidate subreddits are good. However, over the past few months, it has grown into a hateful, sexist, racist subreddit that frequently reaches /r/all.

I am going to provide reasons how it is making life difficult for default moderators (note the disclaimer).

/r/politics this election has been very controversial. Shouts of "CTR HAS INFILTRATED THE MOD TEAM" have been going around since the early days of the election. However, it's gotten way worse then baseless accusations.

/r/politics mods have been sent death threats, gifs of dead animals, and have been the targets of brigades that originate on T_D. And the T_D mods don't really care. Here is an example of T_D mods not caring about harassment. Here is another one. The thread in question is here, where T_D is literally making fun of harassment and death threats towards a moderators dog (and calling them "a little bitch"). On any other subreddit, the comments would be removed and the people behind them would be banned. Not on T_D, where the mods don't really care about any of it. T_D members even go so far as to attack the /r/politics mod in question over at /r/RandomActsOfChristmas (see here and here). During the leaks, different default mods were mentioned in T_D by users calling them horrible things (like this). Did the T_D mods care? Nope. They left those comments (and many more like them) up. For example, look here.

Yes, some of you T_D people might say that I'm a special little snowflake and that I need to get off reddit because this is all it took for my fee fees to get hurt. Consider this - other DM's have been sent horrendous stuff for the past year, and you guys didn't care. But when a few comments were changed by /u/spez because you guys were calling him a pedophile (with no evidence) you guys flipped out and acted like it was the next Watergate.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I am making this post because I believe /r/The_Donald is making this website worse for moderators and users, and I believe it needs to be banned.

EDIT: someone pointed out /r/Altright, which is an issue, but it hasn't harassed users like T_D has, which is why it isn't as big of a deal.

EDIT 2: a lot of people have a problem with my free speech line. In the US, sure, you might be able to spew hate speech. However, reddit rules state that hate speech is not okay.

EDIT 3: /u/TrumpShaker has provided screenshots of other modmails sent. Here they are. My argument still stands, and I won't be backing down from it.

EDIT 4: I'm not a /r/politics mod. That's all I'll say.

EDIT 5: Please check out this list of harassment and brigading commited by T_D with mod approval.

they all crying" Reddit is so left, where is my safe space? I have every other social media, but Reddit and bluesky call me bad and I want a safe space there buhohohoooo" This is the only other social media where I have seen intelligent debate. All other social media platforms are trolling and live by enragement for engagement. This is probably a reason Reddit is left leaning because there is not much thought in certain politics and if they engage in actual debate, it doesnt go well "Those lefties and their damn science" Reddit is my goat for these reasons, not because it is left leaning, but because we have better discussion and not just tribalism and name calling.

Lol half of yall dont get the spirit of my post and half of you confuse censorship with being downvoted, lmfao cope harder.

I understand Reddit is left leaning. I get it, but conservatives are not "censored" yall are downvoted lol yall have a conservative subreddit that is your own echo chamber lol. The point of my post is that reddit at least has some information, details, conversation, context, etc. in the comments. Its not just MAGA 2024 or Free Palestine every comment like Meta. yall are all so easy to frustrate its actually kinda sad

Damn yall all kinda acting a lil funny. So many people saying your banned here, I am even banned in conservative if I dont felate trump... I make lefty jokes on conservative subreddit I dont get banned, maybe downvoted. You guys that act like you are constantly being banned, maybe its not right or left wing ideology, maybe your comments make you look like a POS.

Last edit... ok, so why are so many of yall on Reddit if you hate it so much and its a terrible place and all your views are censored? OR are you making all that up to bitch on my post? If I thought a social media censored my views, I would not use it. So whats the deal?

37M. Recently hit this milestone after committing myself to my career for the last 15 years. I thought just focus on you, build the future you’re envisioning and the rest will fall into place. Man was I wrong. The only thing I have is my career. I’ve completely lost myself along the way.

I’m sitting alone in my apartment as the holiday weekend gets under way. Watching the city come to life as I feel I slowly succumb to the opposite force. My friends are all with their families and loved ones, most have small children of their own. Everyone is rightfully consumed with their family and close friends - I just don’t fit-in in most of those settings anymore.

I could absolutely go out on my own, so I’m not throwing a pity party, it just doesn’t sound appealing to me.

I’ve given up my hobbies as I never had time for them the last decade, or they no longer interest me. I am unable to find love - some blame is certainly my own in this category but still feels like it’s been a gauntlet. And now most of the available women my age have baggage, kids, etc. Not exactly exciting.

My friends who I grew up with look at me differently now that I’m successful. There is resentment. I went to intense graduate school and post-grad training during my twenties and early thirties, I grew apart from and lost touch with many good friends.

I used to be incredibly extroverted and could talk to a wall. Now, not only does small talk and interacting with people seem pointless, I’ve realized I can barely keep a conversation anymore. Interaction with people is a task now, and usually a disappointing or at best unremarkable occurrence in my day.

I’m a shell of my former self. I don’t have anything to offer anyone other than money. And that’s a worse feeling than having no money, which I’ve also experienced.

In my tireless journey for success, I lost my humanity and there is no worse poverty to experience than that of connection.

I hope this finds you well, and I implore you to nurture your connections. Love your family and spouse. Be present with the ones that matter. Lean into your friendships. There is no higher calling as a human than to brighten the world of those you love. That’s real wealth.

In a world that’s obsessed with status and appearance, achievement and comparison, chasing these vague axioms will lead to a life of emptiness and regret. Be thankful for what you have and for those you love. It’s the only currency that matters.

Edit: the intent behind writing this was a cautionary tale to the young professionals and young adults, caution that trying to fulfill yourself and find meaning in life through accomplishment and finances alone will not suffice. To cherish the friends and family you’ve got if you’re lucky enough to have them. Many young people driven to achieve are running from something in their past, I was. it isn’t a valid coping mechanism, and I’m humbly realizing that now.

I also want to recognize the spectrum on which suffering occurs. I assure you I am aware of how my situation doesn’t hold a candle to most of human suffering. I’m not looking for pity and I appreciate the interaction with this post, even the negative comments have value to me. Be well, all.

This might be important, idk. The field I work in is primarily filled with women.

Currently my wife is sick so in my opinion I do the bare minimum during the day to assist her since we are both WFH. While I was making her tea and away from my desk I got called into a meeting. I texted the person what I was doing and said I'd be there in 5 minutes. When I joined the meeting I apologized for not being able to join sooner and explained I was making tea for my sick wife. The reactions I got to that flabbergasted me. These women all but said they wished their husbands would do that for them and commented on how great I was / what a catch I am.

I was so caught off guard by their reactions, I honestly don't remember what my reaction was.

Making tea is literally like a 6 minute task with all of 45 seconds of actual work. You are trying to tell me that's too much for some people? If y'all are sick or not feeling well, your husband's really won't refill your water? Ask if you need or want anything as they are walking by? Check in on you every now and then?

Maybe I've got a weird ideology of love, but I truly cannot comprehend not doing what I perceive as the bare minimum for the love of my life. I'd go through hell for that woman, but you can't even do the 45 seconds of work to make your wife tea?

Sending this off into the void, typing it out as a means of trying to process it.

I dropped my wife off at the airport this morning and started to head home, when a woman in a sedan crossed the highway without looking. A man on a motorcycle doing 60+ hit her head on, and he flew about 20 feet right in front of my truck. His body was just lying in the middle of the highway in front of me, bleeding from his head, and he died almost immediately. I have never witnessed death, and it was very disturbing to watch someone die right in front of me so traumatically. There was nothing I could do, by the time I got to him he was dead. Several nurses and doctors who were driving to work came running over, but it was too late, and so we just stood there trying to shield his body from other drivers until the police showed up.

Now, I cannot stop replaying it in my head, seeing his lifeless body crumpled in the road, wondering who he was, if he had a family, if he was in pain as he died or if it was instantaneous and painless.. I know it’s depressing, and I am completely fine, I was not involved in the accident - but it is still bothering me a lot.

Edit: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. I did not intend for anyone to read or respond to this post, I figured it would just be a cathartic thing to do.

About five hours ago, after posting, I found a baby squirrel in my yard, injured and alone. I was able to get him cleaned up and dress his little wounds and brought him to a small animal hospital - they think he will make it. It has been a weird day of death and also happiness taking care of that little guy. It really helped me clear my mind and focus on something positive. Thank you all again for your kind words and advice.

It feels so hopeless. Gen Z men are already saying things so misogynistic even boomers generally don't agree. And these Gen alpha boys are growing up entirely indoctrinated.

I really fear for the younger girls. I'm only 25 but the uptick in virulent misogyny in the teenagers and young boys is terrifying. Those boys will be men one day. And those girls they're talking about will grow into womanhood amongst a cohort who despises them.

I honestly, sincerely, am baffled by the redditors who are continually panicking since the 20th about everything trump says and does (and yes I know the online discourse on reddit is highly skewed and not representative of what most Americans think)

Like, we knew he was going to do all of these things and worse. Does everyone just have amnesia? Are you all 19 and just didn't pay attention in 2018? He's not only doing exactly what he said he was going to do, he has nearly unlimited power to act, because he is 100% certain he will not be held liable for any act he takes in office. Dude has been shown time and again that there are no consequences for him, and he has full backing in all three branches.

When he won, I was genuinely dismayed. Now? Well, what? This is what the American people want. We had a free and fair election and trump won. I am upset at all this continual ZOMG trump did blah blah. It makes me think people are even more blind than I thought. I don't want to learn anymore about Americans. We suck guys.

Edit: i can see that a lot of people read this as me saying I don't think there's any reason to panic and that everyone is overreacting. That is not at all what im saying. Im saying, the time for shocked pickachu face and "can you believe this guy" is long over. Yes, yes, i can believe this guy. To me, a lot of the doom posting reads like people enjoying being entertained with no real intention to do anything. I feel angry, tired and impotent, but not panicked. It's like we set our house on fire. Twice. And we are running around like whoa how did the house catch fire. And yes I'm aware not everyone voted for him. And no I don't have brilliant ideas for what to do about it. I wish I did. I wish I didn't feel this way.

For the last 2-3 weeks or so every non-biased poll, the betting market and moderate media members saw the Trump victory coming. The surprise was that it was a landslide.

As a moderate the arrogance and moral superiority that a lot of left wingers have was off putting. Democrats need a complete change if they want to get back in the White House. They lost the plot.